Cheney has transplant after five heart attacks
FORMER US vice president Dick Cheney has undergone a heart transplant, after five heart attacks in the past 25 years as well as many medical procedures.
Mr Cheney, 71, waited nearly two years for his new heart, which was the gift of an unknown donor.
An aide to Mr Cheney disclosed the surgery after it was over, and said he was recovering at a Virginia hospital.
“Although the former vice president and his family do not know the identity of the donor, they will be forever grateful for this life-saving gift,” aide Kara Ahern said in a written statement.
Mr Cheney was recovering at the intensive care unit of Inova Fairfax Hospital.
He suffered a heart attack in 2010, his fifth since the age of 37.
That same year, he had surgery to have a small pump installed to help his heart keep working.
In January 2011, Mr Cheney said he was getting by on the battery-powered heart pump, which made it “awkward to walk around”.
He also said he hadn’t yet made a decision on a transplant, but that “the technology is getting better and better”.
Mr Cheney said then that he’d “have to make a deci- sion at some point whether I want to go for a transplant”.
By that point, he had been dealing with cardiovascular problems for more than two decades.
In 1988, he had quadruple bypass s u r g e r y, t wo artery-clearing angioplasties and an operation to implant a pacemaker, a device that monitored his heartbeat.
In 2005, Mr Cheney had six hours of surgery on his legs to repair a kind of aneurysm, and in March 2007, doctors discovered deep venous thrombosis in his left lower leg.
An ultrasound a month later showed the clot was getting smaller.
In July 2007, he had a minor surgical procedure to replace the pacemaker.
Mr Cheney served as vice president for former President George W. Bush.
He was in the position for eight years, from 2001 until 2009.